who paints pictures. in mind. with words. or at least tries.

prose

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Jiten placed his tongue on the gap left by his missing front tooth and tasted salty blood. He spit it out on the sink and looked up in the mirror at his dark eye patch, his sore lips, and torn cheek. He was a mess alright.

The sad part was he couldn’t quite remember what exactly it was that set off the bloody fight, despite his resolve and desperation to let nothing ruin his plans for the evening.

He watched the clock. 7 pm.

Great. Not only beaten up, but late as well.

He closed his eyes and and exhaled a long breath. He looked back up in the mirror and straightened his tie and his suit. Then gave his gelled hair a slight push behind the ears. Beside his missing tooth, and squashed face, he didn’t look so bad.

“Stay cool. Stay cool. You’re okay,” he spoke to the mirror, then turning away, “Yes. Just say you fell off the stairs or something.”

When he entered the front door of La’ Mirch, a wave of awkward stares welcomed him. He suddenly felt conscious. He must have looked like a carnival showpiece. All buttoned up and sleek but bearing an amusing physical anomaly.

He scanned among the rows of tables and found Number Five.

Kavitha sat there, at one of the two chairs, looking away from the door. It was his first date — in fact, the first time ever he was meeting this girl in person — but he could tell it was her, even from behind, from her carefree, uneven haircut he had come to adore from her profile picture.

“Hi, Kavitha,” he said, walking round her back, cursing the heaviness of his lip and his lack of self-restrain in fighting for a cause that he couldn’t even remember anymore. “Sorry, I had a bit of—”

He stopped short, blinking hard. The girl before him, oh it was Kavitha alright, sat with two dark patch under her eyes, swollen lips, taped cheek and an awkwardly bent nose.

“What the hell happened?”

“I, uh… I fell off the stairs.” She watched him with curious, swollen eyes. “And you?”